Ashley Judd Blog

In reading the article on Ashley Judd, I found myself feeling really upset. Celebrities and those in the media today literally always have the public eye on them. And often times, the "public eye" comes from pictures taken of them. What does this do? It puts focus entirely on the appearance of these people. It doesn't matter what kind of things they might be dealing with, or how they are feeling, because they are only portrayed through the pictures that get taken of them. Along with that, many paparazzi photographers aim to take "bad" pictures of these celebrities. It's as if they/we want to see them at their worst so that we can pick at everything of theirs. Is a woman not allowed to have a bad day, just because she is a celebrity? We don't always have perfect hair and makeup days, but it's expected that celebrity women do. Why is this fair? On top of that, there is the concern of weight which ways on almost all female celebs. Whether they gain or lose weight, it is obvious in the media, and they're criticized either way. There is literally nothing that any of them could do to take this pressure away. They will never be good enough.

Can we really blame the public for having these views, though? It's really the media that are portraying these people. And the public only sees what the photographer wants to come across through their lens. The only impression that we get on these people is through snapshots of them at their best and worst- literally nothing in between. What does this say about us as a collective people? We don't care at all about what these celebrities are really like. We never even try to look beyond the impression given by the media. Along with that, does this mean that the media is what makes a person- especially a celebrity?

I think the emphasis of outer appearance on female celebrities is incredibly wrong. It is in no way healthy for them or for how we think as a people. On top of that, there is the inequality between the standards held for women and men within the media. Women have a much more strict set of rules and guidelines to follow to be seen as "normal" and "acceptable". Why? Why do women have such a large set of rules and men do not? Especially since men were the ones who originally owned and produced the media?
Is there any way to get away from this overbearing sense of women having to look a certain perfect way to be accepted? Would this trickle down from celebs to the general public- allowing women to just be who they are and not try to look a certain way?